Xu Yang

Xu Yang is a London based artist born in Shandong, China. She completed her undergraduate at Wimbledon College of Arts and her MA in painting at Royal College of Art. She explores the construction of identity through a contemporary female gaze. Drawing on art history, fashion, fairy tale and performance, Xu pushes beyond the canvas and behind the mask to question reality. Identity, perception and imagination are all key to understanding her universe. 

Xu was the winner of Barbican Arts Group Trust ArtWorks Open 2019 followed by a solo exhibition “100 Carat Diamond”, BAGT ArtWorks Project Space (2020). Xu has been nominated for the Contemporary Young Artist (2020), and has curated a showcase of RCA fine art Graduates for Kovet.art gallery (2021). 

Recent group exhibitions include Photo London with Kovet.art (2021),“Bums”, Dio Horia curated by Skip gallery (2021), “Redirecting”, Tree Museum China (2021), “Softer Softest”, Andrea Festa Gallery (2021) “London Grads Now.” (The RCA selection), Saatchi Gallery (2020), Residency Project: “On the Mountain We Stay Residency End”, NoSpace Organisation (2019). 

Xu was featured in Elephant Magazine: “These Are the Artists You Need to Know Right Now” (2020), The Guardian “The cheek of it: artists celebrate the bottom – in pictures” (2021), Vogue Singapore, The Sunday Times, ArtConnect, FAD Magazine, Exibart, Art She Says and other publications. 

Xu has contributed to collaborative art projects ‘Imaging Technologies’ With Painting Research at Wimbledon College of Arts at Tate Modern (2017) and ‘Here she Comes’ with Monster Chetwynd at Royal Festival Hall (2016). Her works have been exhibited in London, Shanghai, Venice, Athens and across the USA. @_xu.yang_